


parthanatos

by ooka



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Suicide Attempt, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-23 05:06:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14927679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/pseuds/ooka
Summary: The few times Steve had talked about being under the ice, he had mentioned something like this.  It had been after a nightmare, and Steve had had to push out the words between chattering teeth.  “It’s like I can’t get warm,” he had admitted.  “Like the ice has gone down to his bones.”Tony goes under the ice and wakes up in the future.  (Set during Secret Invasion)





	1. Tony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ranoutofrun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranoutofrun/gifts).



> Dedicated to ranoutofrun. This is based on her artwork. She didn't deserve the experience I put her through on this. 
> 
> Your art is amazing. I hope this is even 10% as good as it.

They survive the battle in the Savage Lands.  

Tony’s on edge, half out of his mind with pain, drifting as conversations go on around him.  He’s barely aware of he’s on the plane because he’s still reeling. Extremis is gone. There are Skrulls walking around in the skins of his friends.  Jessica Drew isn’t Jessica.

He’s half aware of the virus eating at his brain, at his limbs, at _everything_.  He’s used to the easy reach, the mere thought, and things being at his fingertips.  The suit doesn’t even respond to him. It’s cut off from him, slow to respond and he’s slow to trigger manual processes that he had forgotten were automated.

He’s adrift in a way he hasn’t been in years.  

Well, he winces around the aftertaste of puke in his mouth, more like days _,_ if he’s honest.  It’s more physical than it was when Steve died, but Tony’s barely holding onto everything in his two hands right now - metaphorical or real.  

He’s a liability, has been since the electricity shorted out his brain, and he nearly shook apart. Tony’s trying to pull himself all together, but he’s barely got it back to the tenuous hold he’s been white knuckling the last few weeks.  He keeps forgetting things, his mind drifting at inopportune times. It’s like he’s just woken up, brain blank.

(He forgets for a split second every morning, while his brain moves from sleep to online.  Sometimes, he thinks, _I wonder what Steve is doing right now?_

Others _, Maybe I’ll catch him on the way out._  

Or, _I should take the day off and drag Steve around town._

Then, the news, phone calls, internet - everything that comes with the connectivity of Extremis  - rushes in, and Tony...he can’t. He just can’t focus on it too long. Moves to the first thing on his list of things to do and swallows down any feelings.

He sleeps less now.)

He take in a deep breath and feels it rattle in his chest.  He closes his eyes for a long moment, praying he doesn’t hallucinate again.  Tony can’t play it off well enough in this group of people, not with how he is right now.  Not in the middle of the plane.

Instead, he stays huddled in the back.  He is careful to keep his head down, eyes low as the others move around him.  People he used to call allies, friends even, are carefully studying him for long moments before looking elsewhere.  Tony’s used to the uneasy roll in his stomach. He accepted this long ago.

So he keeps working.  

They are halfway to New York when Carol says, “We’ve discovered another contingent down in Antarctica.”  

Tony’s head snaps up immediately.  “I’ll handle it,” he says, looking up from the gauntlets he’s been working on.  Or attempting to work on. His hands are vibrating like they did back in his party phase, and he took a little too much meth.  He can’t make them stop.

If he keeps busy, he doesn’t have to think about the fact he’s in a plane full of people he should be arresting.  The mere fact he is fighting side by side with them is going to cause problems. That Spider-Woman has been a Skrull for longer than he was aware and knows too much.  Not think about the fact he had just had to fights against someone - some _thing_ \- that moved, spoke, looked so familiar to how Steve had moved that it had hurt to breathe - even with everything going on - when he looked that way.

Sometimes, Tony’s mistakes punch him in the face.  Other times, they catch him unaware until he’s gasping with the pain of it.  

This feels like one of those latter moments.

Carol is the first person to look sideways at him but not the last.  “Are you sure?” she asks in a hard tone. “You could barely stand up a few hours ago.”

Tony feels like he is running on an empty tank, but that’s nothing new.  He flexes his right hand before balling it up in a fist a few times. Carol’s been eyeing him since before they got on the plane.  She knows him too well some days.

It goes both ways, though.  

Tony grins, one of his carefully crafted playboy smiles he’s perfected over the years of events, galas, balls, in her direction.  “I’m all better. Isolated the issues and got the armor held together with duct tape now instead of just hopes and dreams.” She doesn’t look relieved yet, so he schools his face a little more serious and lowers his voice as he adds, “Carol, I’ve got this.”

Reed stretches a hand across the aircraft and directs him to the station he’s working at.  It’s barely ten steps away, and Tony sees the majority of the plane watch him as he leans in.  “Tony, we need you here, working on solving the problem here.”

Luke barely refuses to let him out of his sights, and Danny doesn’t do much these days that is less than half a step behind Luke.  Peter, and _that_ still smarts, has narrowed lenses as he watches Tony from a distance.  The others are passive in their observations, but Tony feels on display and it makes the feeling in his hand harder to ignore.

“You really don’t.” Tony pitches his voice loud enough that the rest can track the conversation.  “You’ve got the gun to strip away the shape shifting. You’ve got the people to take out the Skrulls here.  I’ve barely been useful the entire time.”

Most people look away at that point, muttering to themselves and nodding.  Even the ones who came with him. Tony knows he’s the villain in a lot of people’s stories right now.  He knew it would lean this way the second he took his stance on the Registration Bill. He had been fine with it.  He had known it was for the best, and they would see it eventually.

But after Steve died on those steps?  

He takes in a ragged breath and pushes the thought away best he can.

“Tony,” Reed says, low and sincere. He’s a little wild eyed, but he’s been that way since he arrived in the Savage Lands - and Tony knows Reed enough to know this is a focused crazy, not grief ridden insanity.  “I need to get my family back. You’re the only one I know who can help me.”

“You don’t need me Reed,” Tony mutters, low enough the less enhanced in the audience can’t hear it.  Logan, well Tony knows not to try to get around him if he wants to listen. “The more I am around, the harder it will be to get anyone on your side.  You need me gone. It’ll be fine. I just need to work separate for a while.”

Reed levels him with a heavy, knowing look, and Tony meets his gaze evenly replying before Reed can say anything too loud like, _I knew what I was doing, just like you_.  

“You know I like Sue and the kids and would help you.  But you need the rest of them working with you,” Tony tilts his chin to the rest of the superheroes around the room.  “And me here? Isn’t helping that. They can forgive you if they think it’s my fault. They can’t forgive me. I’m distracting them from getting stuff done.”

Reed holds his gaze for a long moment before saying, “Okay.  But the second you take out the three Skrulls down there, you head back to New York and help us finish this.”

“Of course,” Tony nods.

He puts his helmet on, sets up the systems before nodding to Reed who opens the bay door.  He looks back on the ramp, catches sight of Carol looking his way, arms crossed in front of herself, worried.  No one else is looking his way except Peter. Tony nods in his direction before looking forward. He drops out of the plane, free falling for a moment before the thrusters kick in, speeding off to Antarctica.

There is a distinct lack of buzz in the back of his mind, and it makes Tony nauseous if he thinks about it too hard.  The disconnection from everything, the way his suit reacts too slow - it’s frustrating, mortifying even, with how slow he’s allowed himself.  How reliant he is on the shiny tricks.

 _You’re just a man in a tin can_ , he thinks, pushing himself a little bit faster.

 

 

 

Even though Reed told him there was three Skrulls, he only sees two other people when he hovers over the edge of the ice.  It’s Black Widow and Falcon, costumes from a few years ago. Their faces are unlined, younger in comparison to their counterparts.  It reminds of him of the times before the Registration Act, the fighting, and everything.

When they all used to hang out in the manor, laughing at each other.  Movie nights and casual gatherings before it all started to go sideways.  The old days filled with scenes of Jan and Hank kissing, always in easy reach of the other.  Wanda’s bright smile and hand in Vision’s. Thor’s laughing face, two hands around a bowl of popcorn.  Steve lobbying for a black and white movie, carefully trying to hide his grin as he reaches for -

He closes his eyes, pushes away the thought away and focuses on the two Skrulls before them.

They circle, waving at him as he slowly descends.  It takes a moment, but he sees all the former weaknesses they’ve worked out over the years in the gym and through simulations.  He meets their eyes and sees the sincere belief they are who they are. That he’s there to help them.

 _Assumptions_ , he thinks darkly before raising his hand in hello.

“Tony?” they cry.  “We’ve been stranded here.  Did you see our distress signal?”  Fake Sam takes off, flying up to meet him.

He uses the upraised hand to clip Falcon’s wings with a quick repulsor blast, watches as he crashes into the snow.  The impostor goes green slowly, and that’s how Tony knows he’s dead. Natasha’s long haired and tries to take him out a new gunshots that bounce off the suit.  She comes at him hand to hand, and Tony aims for her face when he shoots. He watches her turn green before looking in the distance for the third.

“Shellhead?” a hauntingly familiar voice calls out.

It looks like Steve, moves like Steve, but all Tony can see is the body on the slab.  All wrinkled and like it’s fallen in on himself. His bulk has deflated, with the serum no longer pumping through his system.  It even raises its hands to each out to embrace him like Steve.

But Steve’s dead.  And it’s Tony’s fault.

So killing a fake Steve won’t even be the worst thing he’s done all year.

He blasts the Skrull who ducks behind it’s shield.  It crumples a little bit - not vibranium, Tony thinks with a dark grin.  At least they hadn’t gotten that detail right. “Tony!” the fake Cap calls out.  “Tony it’s me!”

“It’s really not,” Tony grunts as he dips in and grabs the shield, zig-zagging in the sky hard, trying to shake it off the shield.  When that doesn’t work, he goes up in a straight line, hoping the lack of oxygen does the Skrull in, but it clings onto it tightly. Tony continues to climb, watches as the display tells him he has less and less oxygen, feels himself go lightheaded, and misses the display telling him the power in the suit is failing.  

The sputtering in his boots jars him, and it’s barely half a second after he realizes what is happening that he goes down.  The Skrull grapples with him, grabbing onto him and throwing a punch. It’s skin has turned green, so he doesn’t have to look Steve in the eye as he punches it.  They roll, Tony struggling to disarm the skull as it wraps it’s legs around Tony’s waist and brings the shield down on his mask.

The display’s low whine of alarm increases in pitch and Tony can feel the mask giving a little bit with every thrust into it.  He reaches out blindly, trying to grab it’s arms, flailing a little before the Skrull’s weight is lifted for a moment, and Tony rolls over only to hit the ground with a sickening thud.

He blacks out for a moment and comes to wheezing, feeling every breath hurt in the familiar feeling of broken ribs. The suit reminds him he has little to no power left in it, and Tony mutters, “Warn SHIELD I am disabled and need back up.”  There is no response, and he listens to his call for help echo without anyone picking it up.

“Damnit,” he mutters, rolling until he is facing upwards and trying not to groan against the pain.  Tony lifts the mask, taking in the freezing air, hoping it pushes him to move faster.

There is a crunch in the snow, and Tony stiffens before trying to find purchase and get upright.  There is a hand on his neck, and the Skrull lifts him up with one hand, a smirk on his lips. “No one is coming to save you Stark.”

“You won’t win,” Tony bites out in between gasps for breath.

The Skrull’s smirk grows bigger.  “Don’t you know? We’ve already taken New York.  The rest of the planet will follow.” It squeezes harder, and Tony chokes for a moment.  “But you won’t be here to see it.”

It takes a few steps, and Tony’s feet drag against the snow, before they don’t, and he knows he’s dangling over something.  He sees a crevice in the ice out of the corner of his eyes, and before he can even comprehend what that means, the Skrull shakes him a bit.  He pulls at the grip around his throat. It’s like iron and everything in Tony is screaming right now. It feels like broken fingers that throb as he pulls fruitlessly.

“I think it’s your turn to go under the ice,” it sneers, and for a single moment, Tony is glad this isn’t Steve’s face.  He wouldn’t be able to handle this if it was Steve’s face staring back at him.

Steve’s under the ice now, and maybe it’s poetic justice he goes under as well.

That’s when he’s dropped - beacon still blaring in ear, and the rushing coldness making his teeth shiver as he _falls_ ,

 

falls for _ages_ ,

 

until all he has is the _blackness_ ,

 

and then there is a moment where he doesn’t even have that.

 

 

 

 

Tony wakes up in a series of moments.

(There are moments between, but they slip through his fingers like water.  All he can do is hold onto the more solid ones keep them close to his chest.  It’s hard in situations like the one he was in.

The few times Steve had talked about being under the ice, he had mentioned something like this.  It had been after a nightmare, and Steve had had to push out the words between chattering teeth. “It’s like I can’t get warm,” he had admitted.  “Like the ice has gone down to his bones.”)

They are moments untethered to time.  It feels like one after another, but he, later, finds out there were larger gaps between them in the beginning, but they started to get closer.

 

 

The first time, he opens his eyes to see ice, frozen and eons of cold.  He can’t breathe, but that doesn’t panic him. He feels like he is treading underwater, limbs anchored down and he’s slowly falling - even though he’s not moving.  The few thoughts he can string together in the darkness and steady blankless he is in in that moment is, _was Steve here once?_ before he closes his eyes again.

He stays awake longer than he wants, but the blankness in his mind keeps the panic at bay until he falls back under.

 

(His fingers are shaking on the paper.  He can see his breath and his vision is blurry, so he has to keep blinking back tears.  “Your teammates. Your **friends** ,” he reads aloud.  “They are all, one way, lost to us…”

Tony can’t look down, can’t do it.  If he does, he’ll seen the metal sheen of the box.  The one he built last night when he should have been asleep.  The one he whispered things to that he hadn’t said to Steve. Couldn’t even bring himself to say to his body, even as withered and unfamiliar as it had been.  

He clears his throat and continues, “And now I’ve lost you too.  Maybe,” he pause and takes in a deep breath. “Maybe there was a reason you had to be on the other side of every argument.  How could you be my runner steering me when others couldn’t…”

He laughs, sharp and broken and so so tired.  “I don’t know if I can do it without you.” He has to pause to let the paper stop shaking even though he knows the words by heart.  “I certainly won’t do it as well,” he admits, quietly.

Jan sniffles behind him, and Tony lets the paper fall from his suddenly nerveless fingers as he looks down the metal box hovering in front of him.  This is Steve’s new home, forever and until the end of time. Tony had built it for him, but wishes this isn’t the last home he had built Steve. Hadn’t left this as the last room he had made for his friend.  

“I miss your battle cry,” he says into the icy abyss and means more than just that. He presses a gauntlet against the box, taking in a deep breath before he pushes everything back down.

 _Bye Steve_ , he thinks.)

 

 

The second time, he opens his eyes to panic and lights that are too bright and familiar-yet-not voices shouting words he can’t recognize.  It’s like the words are spoken and he let’s them fall in one ear and out of the other. He closes his eyes against the light and ears against the noise and thinks, _just let me sleep for once._

It doesn’t take that long before he falls back under.

 

 

(Steve’s struggling in his sleep when he opens the door, and for a second Tony feels bad before he hears Steve muttering while moving roughly in his bed.

“Wake up, old man,” he calls, pushing the door open a little more so the light helps Steve wake up.  “I know it’s late.”

Steve sits up and turns over to the edge, head in his hands as he takes a moment to push the nightmares back. Tony’s all too familiar with the feeling.  “It’s fine, Tony,” Steve replies. “I’m grateful.”

“Bad dreams?” Tony asks, even though he knows the answer.

Steve pulls a shirt over his head before he responds, “Something like that.”

Tony leans back into the hallway.  “Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee.”

Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes, like he is saying, you already buy everything around here, but whatever.  Tony doesn’t call him on it, just grins back.

They walk the hallways for a moment, silent as Steve steadies out from the nightmare.  “So,” Tony says. “This idea has been running through my mind. It’s overwhelming - all consuming - and I can’t shut it off.”  He looks over at Steve and grins. “The exact same thing happened the day we found you.”

“You remember that?” Steve asks, incredulous.  

Tony catches his eye, serious when he replies, “Oh, I remember everything about that day.  We started something that mattered. Because of you, the world change. **I changed**.”

Steve looks away, and Tony slings a hand over his shoulder pulling them together.  “See the best ideas are always the simplest, and the last week when we were talking about how things keep escalating how the world is more dangerous, how threats are more frequent...how our enemies are seemingly endless.  Well, Steve, that; a complex problem, but you had a pretty simple answer.”

He grins at Steve, hand open in front of him, arc reactor glowing dimly on it.  “Do you remember what you said?”

Steve replies, “I do” in that calm Cap tone that always surges Tony with warmth and the knowledge they are going to make it out of this just fine.  

“Well, now I’m sure you were right,” Tony says sincerely.  “We have to get bigger.”)

 

 

The third time, he wakes up to a sleepy hospital room.  It’s mostly dark, so it’s easy to take a look around at the blurry outlines of things.  Machines, waiting chairs, a Steve like figure in plain clothes in the corner bathed in a soft blue glow.  He thinks, _Steve’s dead, so I have to be dead_ in slow, sleep drenched thoughts.

It hurts to think about that, and he closes his eyes, hoping that will push the lump in his throat back down. He falls back asleep, blanket clutched tightly between his fists thinking, _not Steve not Steve_ _not Steve_ on repeat.

 

 

(They are in the gym, and Steve is standing in his uniform and stace after throwing him down again.  “I appreciate you taking your valuable time to help a desk jockey with his neuroses,” Tony says, hating that he has to keep everything separate.  Trying to keep from giving the game away, but he likes being around Steve. Like the feelings he gets from it. How he feels comfortable in a way he hasn’t in years.

Steve’s face twists into what Tony learns later is an incredulous look, like he can’t believe how dumb Tony is being.  The points the genius is missing to connect. “You appreciate?” Steve repeats. “Are you kidding?”

Tony blinks at him, dumbfounded.

“Mr. Stark, when I woke up in this era, I had no one, nothing.  You gave me a purpose, somewhere to belong. You gave me a _home_.”

He leans down and grabs Tony’s hand before pulling him up with little effort.

Tony feels like he has been punched in the arc reactor, and it’s unconscious when he replies softly, “Cap, call me Tony.”

The smile Steve gives him is blinding, and Tony is helpless to do anything but grin back.)

 

 

The fourth and final time, he wakes up to that same blue lights from before bathing the room in a soft glow.  He looks up to a wall of glass peering out into a world he doesn’t know of bright lights, unfamiliar buildings in different shapes.

Tony reaches up, trying to grab onto the edge of the bed to sit up and becomes aware of the sensors on his hands, temples, throat, and chest.  He stills and tries to study the room and sees Steve huddled in a corner.

 _He’s dead_ , Tony thinks bleakly.  And he remembers the gunshot ringing out, the blood staining his hands, Sharon blank eyed.  He remembers the funeral, too much, too soon, tears on his face. He remembers sitting with the body, withered and old like Steve should never have been.  He remembers saying, _It’s my fault._  

 _I’m dead_ , he thinks.  And that hurts less.  It says something, but he pushes the thought away.

Still he looks across this unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar view and sees Steve and knows there are a million explanations, but hallucination is the first one he grabs onto. But, he would never imagine him like this.  Worn and older, softer in sleep. A mixture of the calm face, worn with age, lined for the first time in Tony’s life.

He looks away, because it hurts to look at Steve, face eased in sleep, not in movement, not rushing, not fighting - not angry.  He can barely remember Steve before all of this, splitting bagels on the roof, grinning at him across a room.

He barely remembers Steve not angry - what his face looked like when he was happy to see Tony.

Tony gets off the bed, tugs the IV out, and puts his hands on the windows.  He doesn’t know this place. This location. He looks out into the brightly lit night.  There are brightly colored holograms, showing two women talking before leaning in close and shifting into text _you could be them._ It lingers for a moment before shifting into a face, hair curling around the sides, and Tony startles at the face, knows it.  “FRIDAY?” he whispers.

She mouths something, he can’t hear it before the face shrinks until FRIDAY is standing there, a person.  The words “Stark Expo 2305 coming soon” appear beside her. Tony stills, thoughts completely missing in action as he stares out at the window.  FRIDAY cocks her hip and leans against the words and winks at him.

He can barely breathe as she disappears into nothing, and Tony barely knows why exactly.  Steve shifts in the chair beside him, turning his face towards the light, so Tony can inspect him closer.   

It’s the same slopes he remembers.  The same ones he studies after the moments when he nearly reaches for a drink when he watches as Steve goes down - blood flowing freely between his hands.  The same hands who pulled the shield down on him armor, and Tony thought _this is it_ and _it’s okay because it’s Steve_ as it happened.  It’s the same shade of blue eyes that he kept seeing every time he closed his eyes.

“Steve?” he says, ragged and torn, like the words are drug out of him.

His chest is moving too fast, like he can’t breathe.  Tony’s trembling, and he wants to reach out, but he can’t do this again.  Can’t live with him hallucinating Steve - not again.

Maybe Steve sits up, blanket slipping.  “Hey Tony,” he replies, soft, like he is welcoming an old friend, and they aren’t, they _aren’t_ .  Tony killed him, Steve is _dead_ , and Tony is _dead_.

This isn’t heaven.  He doesn’t deserve that.  

This is hell, so this illusion is going to break soon.  Something is going to go sideways.

They stay in that moment for a while, just staring.  “Steve?” he finally asks again. This time he reaches out, because he has to.  Can’t just _not_.

Steve pulls him in until Tony’s nose is buried into the crook of Steve’s neck, and he can feel the pulse against his cheek.  Can feel that he is alive and real. It’s a solid hug too. Steve grips him a little too tightly, like he does when he forgets his own strength.

He smells a little different, but the planes of his skin are the same.  

Tony exhales sharply, wetly.

“Yeah,” Steve says roughly in his ear.  “Yeah it’s me Tony.”

“What did we used to eat on the roof?” he whispers, urgent to make sure this is real.  That this is really Steve. His Steve. Not a Skrull, LMD, or anything else.

“Bagels,” Steve replies just as quiet.  Tony starts shaking uncontrollably, and Steve grips onto him a little bit tighter, pulling him closer until Tony is basically in his lap.  “It’s me Shellhead.”

Tony starts shaking, feeling like he is going to rattle out of his skin. He buries himself further into Steve, uncaring of how it looks.  Just knows that Steve lets him. _You always take a mile from an inch_ , Jarvis says with a small smile.  Tony doesn’t think anyone would hold it against him now.

“How?” he asks when he can say words again.

“It’s a long story,” Steve replies.  Tony can feel his hand going in circles on his back, quietly trying to sooth him.  

“Isn’t it always?” Tony questions, and he can feel Steve shaking underneath him before a chuckle leaks out.

“Yeah,” Steve replies. “Usually it is.”

They sit there for a long moment, quiet as Tony tries to calm his too quick breathing.  Steve lets him head his head against his shoulder, quietly saying things Tony can’t parse out over the rushing in his ears as he counts 4 breaths in, 4 to hold, and 4 out.

“I missed you Steve,” Tony admits finally, into the quiet.

Steve’s hand stills for a moment before continuing.  “Me too Tony. Me too.”

 

 

 

 

When he collects himself, Steve is ushered out of the room by a blank faced doctor who explains Tony was pulled out of the ice 6 months ago - frozen and unexpectedly breathing.  Extremis has been repairing his cellular levels over the last few months as they slowly defrosted him. He’s been the last six weeks in a coma until they had someone interface with  Extremis and program some wake up protocols.

They run tests.  Tony tries to protest but ends up just silently watching after a while, trying to figure out the technology they are using without displays as they type patterns out in the air before a system turns on.  

If he thinks too hard, it’s like before, right before.  He’s still not all there. There is something nagging him, but he feels under water.  In the clouds. Like there is something he is skipping, missing. Tony is missing something, and it feels like a limb.  But he’s counts, subtly twitching fingers and toes and knows he still has them. There isn’t something he’s missing.

So, he narrows his focus on what he can understand.  He’s in the future. Steve’s older, but alive. So is he.  Technology has changed. But he’ll figure it out. He always does,

“Have a deep breath for the cameras,” the doctor repeats.

Tony does, looking for cameras in the corners of the building.  He sees none.

“Where are the cameras?” he asks after three more prompted “deep breath”’s.

The doctor’s brow wrinkles for a moment before he goes, “Oh they hadn’t gotten to implants yet in the early 2000’s.”  He taps the corner of his right eye. “Camera’s in my eye. Holographic display too.”

The eye looks like a normal eye when Tony peers towards him.  There is no sheen of a contact lens or the giveaway glow of activated bio hardware.  So if it’s also not a transplanted eye since it matches the left one and there is no suspicious lumps for a chip or anything, or the concern of nanobots this is bio-organic extension of the doctor.

“Oh,” Tony replies faintly.

(“It’s in a tattoo,” Steve tells him later.  “They use it to help interact with wearables.  About 100 years back they were doing patches but we evolved into tattoos once you are over the age of 16.  I don’t know all the details, but we can find you some literature if you want to learn more.

Tony has a million questions.  How being the foremost and his hands itch to get on the tech.  Figure it out. He misses his lab, tries not to think too hard about the fact he is 300 years in the future and he doesn’t have a lab any more

Instead, Tony’s silent as he stares out the window as they sit on a balcony in the hospital’s rooftop garden before saying, “Sure.”)

 

 

 

Tony spends a week more in the hospital, quiet without Steve there.  He prods the machines and the displays around him. Clearly older technology because it’s what he’s comfortable with, because it’s similar to what they used on Steve and the doctors are cautious to change anything when Tony was revived without the serum in his bloodstream.

He keeps his eyes outside, watching the pods that zip around.  The flying Vespa’s teen dip in and out of the air, around traffic.  The varieties of people in the holographic ads, some that don’t even look human.  The way buildings dip and curve in new ways.

The haze when he looks down, the inability to see the ground.  The lack of greenery. The way the sun is too large and too close clues Tony into the fact the Earth isn’t doing too well.

Steve comes in late every day in some variation on a military uniform.  He doesn’t say much about what he does. Just asks Tony about his day, avoids questions about giving away too much, just reminisces about the times before the Civil War.  He remembers highlights. Not all the details.

Tony does.

(He bites his tongue, talks around the fights and feels guilty with the easy way Steve talks to him.  He pushes it down, like he does with everything these days, and quiet his thoughts the best he can.

He has nothing else, but he does have Steve.  He can carve something out of this. He can make it work until he solves the problem on how to go back.

 _It’s worth it_ , he repeats to himself on loop.   _This is worth it._ )

 

 

 

They eventually let him out, and Steve takes him back to his apartment.  “You housed me when I woke up in the future,” he had said ruefully. “Now it’s my turn to repay the favor.”

They take a self driving pod that flies to Steve’s place in the city.  It gleams in a minimalist and white way; something that looks like the tower back in the day.  Steve’s modest about the place, quiet even as he shows Tony around before they settle in the kitchen.

Steve leans on the kitchen counter, and Tony watches it light up.  The display shows off different household systems, waiting to be tapped and opened for more details than the simple dashboard views.  

Tony runs his fingers around the edge of the white surface and watches as it reorients to face him.  He presses the temperature icon that brightens before going holographic presenting a week long forecast, hour by hour options available and the condos’ internal temperature schedule corresponding for each day pop up to the right.  

Below all of that, the SI logo dimly glows.   Tony reaches out to touch it but pulls back at the last second.  

Instead he waves his hand and watches as the entire display minimizes.  He looks up and catches Steve staring at him. “I’m loyal,” Steve shrugs with a sheepish smile.  

“At least tell me SI is still on top,” Tony says.  “I’ll die if my succession plan was all for shit.”

Steve’s face does a complicated twist before settling in a placid sort of smile.  “Pepper took over the company, rebranded with everything,” he shrugs around the talk of the immediate chaos after he died.  “She released your ten year plan of different electronics and Peter came on board to SI two years in. Took the company more biomedical than your initial take.  He always said he was just improving on the ideas in your archives.”

“I barely had anything in the biomedical,” Tony scoffs.  “H.G. Wells sort of bullshit ideas that had nothing really practical behind them.  Whatever he did in that field was on his own.”

“He always said you would deny that,” Steve replies faintly.  “Said you were too quick to discredit yourself when it came down to it.”  He smiles at Tony, “He bet me. I guess I lost.”

Tony’s lips twist but bites back the need to say, _you are romanticizing my personality out of guilt._ Along with _, Peter would have never said that.  Not anymore._

He’s familiar with the goggles death of a comrade gives you.  He’s a superhero and seen enough of his friends die and be resurrected.  He knows all about that sort of guilt that twists memories.

But Tony also knows his own worth, the weight of his sins and the triumphs he’s had.  He knows when someone is twisting the truth.

But instead he keeps his mouth shut in the moment.  Intent to make the most of this. “How did he and MJ turn out?  Did they wind up having a billion redheaded babies? Because they seem like the sort to have a billion babies and be disgustingly happy.”

Steve frowns lightly, “They split, eventually.  Peter used work as his escape after the accident.”  Tony stills, but Steve keeps going. “He ended up in a wheelchair after a battle with Venom.  He just landed badly, and we couldn’t fix it. Pepper offered him a job, and they saved SI.”

Tony notes that mentally to look up later, when Steve goes into the work he talks around in a few days. “Oh,” he replies blandly, trying and failing to see MJ and Peter not attached at the hip.  He’s just used to the concept that those two crazy kids would always be together. It’s hard to imagine Peter limited to a chair, unable to do his crazy acrobatics - hanging from a ceiling or sticking to someone’s shoulder.  

Instead Tony pulls his hands back from the counter and asks, “So am I taking the couch?  Does the future even have pull out couches?”

“No,” Steve smiles, gently.  “You can come this way.” He leads Tony down a hallway, and the lights come on every three steps ahead of Steve as he heads.  Effortless elegance in how the systems anticipate his every move. Tony wants to know how it knows. Is it a house AI or something new?  Have they discovered a new level of application for neural networks for house so they are living breathing things.

Even for him, it sounds like science fiction, but what Tony is quickly realizing is that everything he imagined before is limited when it comes to the future.  

“JARVIS is the house AI,” Steve says before coming to a stop in front a room. “He’ll answer any questions you have.”

“JARVIS?” Tony asks as he looks at the minimalist furniture in shades of white.  

“Just A Very Intelligent System,” Steve replies, avoiding the question he can see in Tony’s eyes.  “Peter did it to honor his memory.”

His memory.  It hits Tony really hard in that moment.  He won’t ever see Jarvis again, or Carol, or even Peter.  It’s just him now. Him and Steve.

He thins his lips and looks into Steve’s eyes.  “It’s a good room,” he says. “I think I want to take a nap though.”

Steve ducks out of the doorway sheepishly.  “I’ll have JARVIS tell you when dinner is ready.”

Tony watches him disappear down the hallway before he sits heavily on the edge of the bed.  He runs his fingers on the edges of the comforter. It’s softer than he is used to, and Tony looks around for anything familiar, but even the lambs are different.  They are soft balls of glowing light.

He gets into the bed and pulls the blanket over his head, counting breaths until he can’t think about anything except for the next number in the order.  

_Ninety Eight._

_Ninety Nine._

_One Hundred._

_One Hundred and One._

 

 

 

Steve goes back to work later that week.  He’s apologetic, concerned. Tony nearly pushes him through the door.  He spends the first day researching things on the tablet, nearly unmoving as he looks up the lives of his friends, one by one.  

Peter’s stories is true.  Pepper ends up marrying him actually.  They never have children, but they smile, lean in close in a way that Tony remembers Pepper doing with him once. They power SI into a new era, beyond what any one expected after Tony’s death to ever occur.  Beyond what Tony ever expected the company to become.

Carol leads the Avengers in his stead.  She dies in battle thirty years after him.  Kamala Khan takes on her legacy and shoulders it for another fifty years after before she goes down too.

Wanda comes back to the Avengers.  She is careful in a way she wasn’t before, Tony can tell from the old videos from the battles.  Pietro sticks close to her, never leaving her orbit until his death fifteen years later. She doesn’t crumple this time at his death.  She falters but stays strong, keeps on target.

Jan dies during the Skrull conflict.  Hank...doesn’t handle it well. He turns against the avengers, against the world, lost.  Reed takes him under his wing, tries to bring him back. Hank, lost to grief and having lost himself, kills Sue Storm.  “You match me now,” his crazed form says in the video to a thunderstruck Reed.

Then, Johnny kills Hank.  

Tony puts down the tablet and drifts into the kitchen.

Steve comes home to Tony taste testing a bolognese and leans against the kitchen wall.  When Tony looks up, Steve’s soft smile falls. “You looked,” Steve notes.

Tony nods softly, putting his tasting spoon in the steam dishwasher.  The glowing counter takes the note of the salt he just added to the sauce as it records his recipe in real time.  He puts the lid on it, letting the sauce simmer a little longer. “Hank,” Tony starts before he stops.

He cleans the countertop for a moment before he looks back up to Steve.  “Did you know Jarvis taught me this recipe?” he says instead. Steve watches him before shaking his head. “It was my mother’s, and her grandmothers before it, but she taught it to Jarvis years before I was born.  I didn’t learn it until after she died.”

He smiles, a little helpless as he remembers Jarvis correcting him day after day as he tried to make the sauce.  “I was lost after they died, and one day, he pulls me into the kitchen and puts me to work.” Tony laughs. “I was terrible.  He knew it, I knew it, but we made something manageable to eat. It was only after that he told me it was my mother’s recipe.”

“I can’t look him up,” Tony admits softly.  “I can’t know he died from some fight that burst out on the tower.  I don’t want him to have died of a broken heart after me. I can’t know that if that is what happened.”  He looks to Steve. “If that happened, I need you to lie to me. I need you to tell me he died, surrounded by the people he loved.  He died in his sleep, happy and healthy.”

Steve steps forward, puts his hand on Tony’s and says, “Jarvis mourned you hard.  May woke up eventually and she provided him a shoulder, and he took it. She married him, proposed too.  He took the kids under his care. Make sure they had a bed, a place to live, a warm meal every day. He died at nearly 100, surrounded by all of us.  It was easy.”

He swallows hard, and Tony has to push the tears back as he smiles.  “He would have been an amazing father.”

Steve squeezes his hand.  “He already was, and he was so proud of you.”

Tony ducks his head to hide the play of emotions on his face. Steve pulls him close and says nothing as Tony chokes back the tears he doesn’t want to shed.

“He told me,” Steve adds, after a moment.  “He told me if you ever came back to tell you he loved you.  And to make sure you were taken care of.” He pauses, and Tony feels his shoulders begin to shake.  “I don’t like breaking promises Tony, so I’m glad you woke up.”

They stay there for a while.

 

 

 

There are nights when Tony wakes up shaking, too cold even with blankets on.  He says, “JARVIS turn the head up.” Until his is sweating and the numbness in his limbs goes away.

He can’t get rid of the image that is in the coffin with Steve’s body, slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean as his air runs out.  So he ends up in the living room, coffee mug in hand, watching the sun as it rises while wrapped up in blankets.

Steve spends those mornings close by, knees pressed against each other as they sit side by side, not talking.

Tony likes those mornings best.

 

 

 

Tony spends his days reading history, watching movies.  Spending time with Steve for longer than he can remember.

They become friends again.  It’s easy, like putting on a sweater he has forgotten was an old favorite.  It fits, a little worn, but he patches it here and there. Finds new ways to show it off.  Finds new outfits to pair it with.

What he means to say is this: they slide into each other’s lives like Tony never went missing.

Steve cooks, Tony critiques.  They play war games off the old battles they used to fight.  They exist in a world built in the three bedroom apartment 300 years in the future, and Tony doesn’t feel like he should exist outside of it.

(Steve gets cagey sometimes when Tony asks him about friends.  Tony doesn’t push it. Doesn’t push much. Is too scared if he pushes too hard he’ll lose this too.

He doesn’t know if he can lose Steve again.  Doesn’t want to find out.)

 

 

 

Steve goes on his first weeklong trip while Tony has been occupying his space three months in.  He is quiet during dinner, not keeping up his usual commentary of his day while they eat until Tony finally says, “I’ll be fine you know.”

Steve nods solemnly, “I know.”

Tony knows his face, the pinched worry look Steve gets when he has a plan but he knows the others won’t like.  He’s seen it too many times before Steve says something self sacrificing and something's even suicidal. “You have JARVIS keeping a close eye on me,” Tony tells him as he picks at the lo mein in front of him.  “You can ask him for an update. I won’t be insulted.”

Steve looks relieved.  “Thanks Tony.”

Tony shrugs.  “Don’t put your life on hold because I am still adapting.  I’ve got some gadgets to strip down and rebuild. If I’m going to be of any use here, I need to figure out how technology works.”

“You know,” Steve begins before pausing.  He fiddles with his chopsticks before continuing, “you can just take it easy.  Take some time off.”

Tony rolls his eyes.  “Yeah right. Pull the other one Steve.”

“No,” Steve says, sincerely.  “I mean it. You don’t have to.  I have enough that you can sit back and do whatever you want.”

“Be a kept woman?” Tony laughs.  “What would the gossip blogs say?”

“How can you be so sure we still have gossip blogs these days?” Steve challenges.  

Tony rolls his eyes, “Of course the future still has gossip blogs.  What else would everyone be speculating about idly?”

“Galaxy wide peace,” Steve returns cheekily.

Tony drags out the next roll of his eyes, but he can’t help the fond smile from spreading on his face.  “Unfortunately, not everyone is as idealistic as you Steve. And two generations would not change that.”

“More like four,” Steve replies, “but true”

“Be safe,” Tony says instead of continuing the discussion.

“I always am,” Steve counters with a grin.  Tony swallows back all the times Steve wasn’t, that he remembers.  Instead, he just nods before walking around and hugging Steve.

They do that a lot now.  Hug. Tony takes the moment and smells the paint on Steve’s shirt and sweat, feeling the warmth of his body underneath Tony’s hands.  

He pulls back and smiles.  “Go, bring home the bacon. I’ll be here waiting.”

Steve grins.  “I’ll be back soon.”

 

 

 

Tony spends long days in the quiet house, taking apart the toaster Steve never uses.  He tries to put it back together but forgets how things go. Has to have JARVIS pull up images and instructions.  

He starts to realize that things are 3D printed more now instead of assembled.  

Tony then dives into 3D printing plans, begins to break down holograms, trying to figure out how each layer is build on the next until he gives up, and tries to come at it from another angle.  Starts with a vase and tries to build it up into a viable 3D form.

He gets that, then tries to move into the organic and inorganic matter mix that this century has decided to embrace wholeheartedly.  It’s the mixture of chemistry and biology with a side of engineering that gets him.

He puts that project aside and picks the paperwork on the latest SI patents and tries to break down the white papers, the concepts and equations the teams are using to improve detection of anomalies in space from beyond Jupiter.  He writes on the windows, breaking down the equations, step by step. He goes back to window one twenty times before Steve comes back in the door.

  
“Tony?” he asks, staring at the mess.

Tony looks up and realizes it’s been a week, and he isn’t sure the last time he had a real meal.  His face is an unshaven mess. He hasn’t slept in a while. “Welcome home?”

Steve raises an eyebrow before coming forward and plucking the marker from Tony’s hands.  “Let’s get you back to looking,” he sniffs and then winces, “and smelling like a normal person.”

Tony waves him off and treks out of the room, embarrassed.  “I can do it. I can do it,” he repeats as he heads to the shower.

It’s only under the hot spray that he realizes he didn’t figure out anything.  Doesn’t know how anything works more than he did before Steve left.

It leaves an empty feeling in his gut, before Tony steels himself.  He can figure this out. He’s been figuring things out for a long time now.  He can solve this problem too.

 

 

 

He has JARVIS walk him through the equations the next day, step by step by step.  

It’s in the middle of the third time through, he realizes it’s not sticking.

A week later, he tries again with the 3D printing.

The next week is talking through the updates in Arc Reactor technology.

After that, the latest SI phone.

Finally, the kitchen counter.

None of it sticks.  And that’s when Tony starts panicking.

 

 

 

The doctors run test after test after test.

He sits for scans.  He answers questions and tests with machine’s scanning his brain.  His answers are stuttering, and he has to reach for some when he knows they used to be easy before.  Steve holds his hand every single time, and Tony’s knuckles are white as he grips it. His mind is racing with different scenarios, each one worst than the next.

“The ice killed some of your brain cells,” the team of doctors say as they show him a 3D image of his brain.  There are areas of his brain lit up brightly and others dimly. Tony knows where this is going.

He slowly lets go of Steve’s hand.  But Steve doesn’t let go, holds on tighter, like he’s keeping Tony here in this moment with their laced fingers.

“It seems like Extremis can’t regenerate them, so you will have to adapt to what you have,”  The main doctor, the one talking, looks over his glasses at Tony. “You aren’t dumb. Not by a long shot.  It’s just going to take you a while longer to comprehend something, and you’ll have to accept that you won’t ever get some others.”

It’s like there is a white noise in his ears that keeps his mind blank, because Tony knew this was coming.  Had an inkling, just a feeling. Has had it for months. He just pushed it back, thinking if he ignores it, it isn’t happening.  It’s worked for him so far.

He’s alive though.  Isn’t that enough?

“Is there anything you can do?” Steve asks, relentless.  “I know there are procedures -”

Another doctor in the back shakes her head no.  “We can’t interface with Extremis. It’s too old, out of date, and it’s warped when he was in the ice.  We just can’t. Your friend is how he is. There is nothing we can do.”

Steve opens his mouth to push to argue but Tony breaks in with a  “thank you for your time” in a raspy voice. He stands up and Steve follows him as he leaves the room, still clinging to Tony’s hand.

“We can figure it out,” Steve is saying.  “We can get it taken care of. I’ll take you into the Avengers tower.  We’ve got medical advancements these doctors don’t have. It’s something we can fix.”

Tony pulls them to the side of the hallway and looks Steve in the eyes.  He’s got the look where he is going to fix this. Tony smiles softly, “Okay Steve.”

He doesn’t believe it will work, but he believes for Steve.

 

 

 

Two day later, Tony goes back into the study he has spent the last month working with JARVIS to walk him through things.  He is silent as he cleans up the components he had been breaking apart, equations scribbled out again and again on paper, notes he has scattered from different projects.  It takes two hours but he organizes the place until it’s gleaming, barely anything out and a trash bag filled with everything he doesn’t understand.

“JARVIS?” Tony says aloud onto the echoing silence of the room.  

“Yes Tony?” the AI replies.

 Tony takes in a breath.  “Lock me out of here for a month.”

The AI pauses before saying, “Okay Tony.”

 _It's worth it_ , he thinks furiously as he pushes down his fears, thoughts and emotions threatening to overtake him.

 

 

 

“I don’t have any one,” Tony says out loud for the first time one night, unprompted, a few weeks after the final pronouncement.  “I have no money, no resources, I don’t even understand how the technology works and I’ve _always_ had that.  Why are you here?  The last time you hated my guts.”

“Tony,” Steve replies softly.  “It’s been a long time for me. I understand what you did now.”

Tony laughs, bitter.  “You are the only one out of the two of us.”

Steve reaches out, and Tony flinches away.  “I killed you,” Tony admits. “I killed you and SHRA wasn’t worth it.  None of it was worth what it cost people.”

“You had to take the side.  You were trying to protect us from ourselves,” Steve replies, leaning as close as he can without Tony moving away.  “And that was Red Skull. It was all Red Skull.”

Tony shakes his head.  “It was me.”

“Do you know what was one of the first things I did when I got back?”  Steve asks. And Tony watches him, jaw firm and strong. “I went looking for you.  I fought the idea that you were dead. You had thought I was dead, and I was just lost in time.  I wasn’t dead, so you couldn’t be. I looked for five years before I had to admit you were dead.”

“I spent every summer looking for you in Antarctica, and I never found you.  Do you know how much that killed me, getting the call? 300 hundred years you missed because I couldn’t find you in the ice.”  Steve runs a hand through his hair until it’s all over the place. “You lost time with everyone because I couldn’t find you.”

Tony smiles and it feels like it’s pulled out of him.  “You know this reminds me of Dad and how he used to search for you.”

“We search for things we love,” Steve replies.  Tony meets his gaze and neither says anything. It’s like they are in a standoff, two sides fighting.

He ducks his head eventually.  “Okay Steve,” Tony says. “Okay you win.”

Steve grins.  “We both win,” he counters and pulls Tony in.

Tony wants to argue that point.  Wants to tell him that Steve is losing.  Has been losing for a while because Tony is useless and worthless.  Instead he pushes the thought away and just leans into Steve. Takes the moment like it’s the last one he’s got.

 

 

 

It takes more tests and more trials, and what Tony knew was true is said aloud.

No one can fix him.  This is who he is now.

Steve puts a hole through a wall and then pushes through.

Tony just stares blankly out a window.

 

 

 

“You want to come to work?” Steve asks four months in in the middle of the morning, coffee at his elbow across from Tony.  He’s got a holo version of the news in front of him. Steve says it casually, like it doesn’t mean anything either way.

Tony looks up from a book he’s reading, hard cover because Steve likes the feel between his fingers and the smell of leather bound books.  He can see the way Steve is trying to hide his anxiety over the topic “Sure,” he replies, easy going about it.

His mind whirls at the concept of going to the tower.  The chance his own tech is hole up somewhere and he can use that to interface with some of the things he has been trying to work on.  Bridge the gap he has with the technology currently at his fingertips and still can’t understand.

He’s giddy as they get head out, taking a pod, zig-zagging through downtown until they end up on the 23rd level of what used to be Avengers Tower.  His Avengers tower. But even now the feel is different. It’s like the last vestige of something he knows is slipping through his fingers. He’s truly all alone here.   And there is no way back.

Tony feels cold.

There is a garden with holograms, like statues but electronic.  There is one of the first group of Avengers, and he stops in front of it.

“You’ve outlived most of them,” Tony mutters, fingers outstretched to touch the hologram but not.

He gives a chuckle a moment later, “We’ve outlived them.”. He shakes his head.  “I never thought that would happen.”

“Coming out of the ice does something like that,” Steve comments blandly, like he knows Tony is on the precipice of something in this moment.

“Even before,” Tony muses.  “I thought it would be something with fire to be honest.  Not a bullet or drowning, or even the ice. I always thought something was going to burn me.  It would be slow and I would feel it. I would go screaming into the abyss.” He looks at Steve - is able to see the minute horror in the other man’s face at the revelation of his thoughts.  Steve’s face is mostly bland, but Tony’s relearning his expression. The lines make it harder, the winkles pull his face in new and different ways, but it’s the eyes that are the same. Maybe easier to give now, let Tony catch things he used to not before.  “I’ve never been one to be simple,” he shrugs before stuffing his hand back in his jacket’s pocket.

“Tony,” Steve says, tentative like he is scared to startle him.  Tony can see him in the reflection of the glass, reaching but not touching.  

Tony turns on his heels, wry smile on his lips.  “Gallows humor,” he replies. He sees Steve’s unsure posture and adds, “I’m still getting used to everything.”

Steve watches him closely, looking for weakness, so Tony continues, honest finally, “I’m not handling it too well, but I’m trying.”  He looks away after saying that, not wanting to see Steve’s face soften.

Tony’s using him.  Using Steve to get to the lab, and he can’t help but feel the tinge of something in his throat, like he wants to swallow the words he’s just said.   _I want to go_ home, Tony thinks. _I don’t belong here._

“Come on,” Steve says, hand on his shoulder as they start walking through the living room.  “Let me introduce you to everyone.”

Tony puts on the billionaire persona and feels Steve’s steady hand on his lower back as he chats. The heroes have questions about the early 2000’s and Tony tries to answer them the best he can while looking for the lab.  He can feel Steve’s eyes on him from time to time. He just smiles at the other man.

Between the latest Hawkeye and Captain Marvel, Tony is able to figure out that Steve is the senior Avengers leader.  He has taken a step back in the last six months since Tony was found. He’s back up and team trainer. They commiserate over Steve’s relentless style.

Everyone asks Tony when he is joining them.  He demurs until Steve puts an end to it with a firm look and, “Tony is adjusting now.  He’ll let me know when and if he wants to. I’ll let you know if it ever happens.”

The rest adjust to the comment with ease and change the discussion.

He excuses himself to go to the bathroom and goes downstairs to where his lab used to be.  The glass is still up from years ago, but inside isn’t a lab of any sort. It’s a memorial of all the fallen heroes.  Their costumes, gear is held up. In the right side is a version of his armor.

He walks up to it, eager, hoping it’s functional.  Maybe he can interface with the suit through Extremis.  He hasn’t been able to use it since he woke up. The doctors think it’s because technology has evolved beyond the initial parameters of Extremis and it can’t adapt.

It’s obsolete in this future.  Just like him.

The second his fingers touch the armor, he knows it’s wrong.  He taps it, and feels the metal give a little, like it’s softer metal, maybe even aluminium.  He reaches in the arc reactor hole, looking for the manual switch and finds none. It’s actually smooth inside, no wires or circuitry.

He steps back, hand falling to his side as he realizes the entire thing is fake.  A replica. Non functional.

Tony stands there, in the midst of his crushed hopes, and takes a few steadying deep breaths before straightening his shoulders and heading back upstairs.

He meets Steve’s smile when he spots Tony coming back in with one of his own.  Slips into his role as standing by Steve and knows that nothing will ever be the same.

 

 

 

Three weeks later, Steve reaches an arm around Tony’s shoulder and reels him in during a rewatch of the fifth incarnation of Wrath of Kahn.  Kirk is young, darker skinned and has an accent that makes no sense.

Spock is green eyed and female and has a looseness in her gestures Tony never saw in the Quinto version but something Nimoy deployed in those same movies.  She puts her hand up in the Vulcan salute. Kirk puts their hand up against the wall as well. “Live long and prosper Spock,” they say in a raspy low voice.

“At least this part never changes,” Tony says.  

Steve laughs, “Remind me to show you Into Darkness.  You’ll hate it.”

Tony rolls his eyes.  “I can never hate Star Trek.”

Steve laughs and laughs and pulls him closer.  “I know you well enough to know you won’t like it.”

(He’s right.  Tony hates it.

Still it’s a good moment.  A second of normalcy in the middle of it all.)

 

 

 

“What are you going to do while I am out?” Steve asks as he leans across the kitchen counter as Tony slowly eats his oatmeal.

Tony shrugs for a moment.  “Maybe get some sleep.”

Steve opens a drawer before handing him a box, sheepish.  “I don’t know what level you wanted to start on, but I thought this would be a good thing to do while I’m out on the next mission.  It’s something the kids like.”

Tony inspects it, reading that it’s a Robot Creation Kit with AI capabilities.  It’s a punch to the gut, because the ages on it says 5-7. He has to take in a deep breath before he looks up and takes it. “Thank you Steve.”

Steve leaves, bag in hand, on his mission a few hours later grinning.  

Tony carefully puts the kit aside and doesn’t look at it as he advances on the food unit they both jokingly call a replicator with a wrench.

 

 

 

Tony’s sitting in the dark of the living room, the only light in the room is the one coming from the window.  He’s leaning with his head against the glass, staring blindly out into the nothingness.

Time doesn’t feel like it matters anymore.  Not much matters anymore.

The door opens, and he hears Steve call out.  When he doesn’t respond, he hears Steve’s hurried footsteps in the apartment before the come to a stop in the entryway of the room.  

“Tony?” Steve asks.

“I used to know how to break something down and put it back together,” Tony says.  He has the replicator like food thing broken down into pieces in front of him. Some are twisted and bent, others are carefully ordered and organized.  He feels the glass all around him, and when he shifts, he feels it underneath his feet as well. Cutting in.

“My mother hated it you know,” he continues.  “I used to take things apart and put them back together, but she would walk in on me dismantling the microwave or toaster or anything I could get my hands on.”  He looks up, and Steve is trying to make it closer. “Jarvis thought it was hysterical. He loved it in his own way.”

“Jarvis loved you very much,” Steve agrees.

“You are missing the point Steve,” Tony rolls his eyes.  “You always miss the point Steve. This isn’t a story about me missing people.  Of course I miss them. I loved them, but everyone dies eventually. This is about me being able to take apart anything and put it together since I was four.”

He waves a hand at the destruction around him.  “I don’t know how to even break down something down any more.  I don’t know technology.”

The floor is slick under his feet, and he tightens his grip on the piece of metal he has tight in his left hand.  

“What use if a futurist who can’t see the future?” he spits out.  “I should have died in the ice because I am useless. I am nothing and I can’t _do_ anything.”

He grips the piece of metal so hard it begins to dig into his skin.  Blood begins to drip down his hand. “Tony,” Steve says, and his voice breaks in the middle.  “Tony don’t do this to me. Don’t make me lose you again.”

“How can you lose me?” Tony scoffs, incredulous as he waves his arm.  The blood splatters around him. “When I never really was here? Because me?  I’m not the Tony Stark from 2009. I’m not. I’m half of him. Maybe even less than that.”

Steve is crossing the room steadily, getting closer to him as he talks, but Tony doesn’t care.  Can’t care. “I’m not your Tony. I stopped being him the second you died because I had to white knuckle my way though  everything after. I did that to you Steve, and the Tony who did that to you wasn’t someone I wanted to be.”

“So all I have,” he says, waving his arms around him.  “Is my usefulness as an Avenger, which only exists if I can use technology.  But I can’t. I don’t know how to build anything any more. I’m useless.”

He grins, sharp and with bitter edges.  “Useless Starks are only useful in one way - dead.”  His vision is going dark, and this is familiar. Tony closes his eyes and hope it’s quick, faster than it was before as the chill soaked into his bones and his breathing slowed until he couldn’t any more.

Steve grabs his hand and pulls the warped metal from him, but it’s too late, and he laughs and laugh as he slumps against Steve.  He’s going home now.

Steve can’t stop him.

 

 

  
He gets Tony to the med bay in time.  

The less said about the week after, the better.

 

 

 

They spend many quiet moment together after that initial week in the apartment.  Tony reading quietly in between meetings with a therapist. Steve by his side every moment.  Carefully watching him, not letting him out of his sight.

Tony knows  Steve sleeps outside his room, in the living room in a chair ready to take action if necessary.  And if he didn’t feel so empty, he would feel guilty.

Instead he carefully looks away from the camera feeds in the middle of the night.  

They learn how to avoid each other’s sharp edges in the weeks that come.  How to be people again and not just broken.

It’s still not enough.

 

 

 

“JARVIS?” Tony says one night, in the pitch black darkness.  

There is a moment before a low voice says, “Yes sir?”

“What was Steve like before I came here?

“He worked many long hours unlike now.  Many back to back mission.”

“Was he happier?” Tony asks, twisting the blanket between his hands before he sits up and hunches over.

He already knows the answer, but he has to hear it.

“He smiled more when you came into the home,” JARVIS returns.  “He began to balance his life and spent less time training and chasing after the next ‘bad guy’ as he likes to say.”

“When I came home,” Tony repeats, and it hangs between them.  JARVIS carefully does not respond, and for an AI with the tendency to ask Tony multiple times a day to clarify or explain something, it’s telling.  

“So you could say I have impacted his life negatively,” Tony says, finally, and lets his head fall between his bent knees.  He can feel the pull on his spine, the tightness there. He stretches forwards and feels the pull ease.

Sometimes the answer to stretch in order to feel better.

There is a pause before JARVIS replies, “His life is different with you in it sir.”

“It’s not happy though,” Tony presses, hand pushing against the stitches.  It hurts sharply and he has to swallow against the pain before letting go. He lifts his head to stare ahead into the darkness.  

“I can not definitively say he has been happier since you have come here based on the last months,” JARVIS admits finally.  It’s soft, like it’s an admission the AI didn’t want to make.

Tony moves his head to the side so he stares out the wall and presses his hand against stitches again.  He presses and presses until he feel dizzy with the pain, then he hold on a moment longer before he lets go.  “Thought so,” he whispers into the darkness.

JARVIS doesn’t reply.

Tony doesn’t need to hear anything else anyway.

 

 

 

The next morning, Tony sits in the chair facing the city, watching as the clouds rise.  It’s been a quiet morning, Steve is carefully walking around him, like he has been since that night.  Tony’s tired of it. Tired of talking around things, always talking around it.

“You know I used to love you,” Tony tells him.

Steve is standing across the room, sitting on a stool, painting as he looks out the window.  He stills at what Tony’s said, and looks over at him. “Tony,” he starts.

“I say used to because I don’t know you,” Tony shrugs, eyes going to the window.  He’s carefully avoiding eye contact. “Not any more. Sometimes I think everything I knew died the moment I went under the ice.”

He pauses, looking down at his hands and sees them shake.  “Sometimes I think I died down there.”

He looks up, back at Steve.  It feels honest, painful, but real.  “You had to have known.”

Steve shakes his head slowly before standing up.  “Tony, you didn’t.” He takes a few steps towards him, and Tony stays there, watching.  “You never showed any inclinations. You had Rumiko.”

Tony’s smile goes rueful.  “You act like you knew me completely.”

“I did,” Steve states, eyes firm.  “Tony you were my best friend.”

Tony grins.  “At times. Not by the end.  I think Sam was more your speed most of the time.”

“Tony,” Steve says.  “Tony, don’t.”

“I loved you,” Tony says.  He feels reckless when he says the words.  Like he’s cutting himself open and showing everything he has left.  The few secrets he has left open to the world. This is it. The last few things.  

He has nothing else.

It feels like a death.

“I had for a long time.  It became part of me. I knew you didn’t lean that way,” he shrugs again.  “So I didn’t talk about it. And I did have male partners, so stop trying to act like you knew it all.”

Steve stands there, paint brush in his hand.  The old ones, wooden with bristles that are fraying from age and use.  Tony has to wonder if today’s world even uses them. If this is just Steve clinging to a semblance of the past, like he used to back in the day with the old Brooklyn apartment.

Tony wonders if that is something he is going to become.  Something Steve holds onto even beyond it’s time.

He looks at Steve, at the planes of his face, at his cautious stance, and thinks, _Maybe we’re already at that point._

Tony tilts his head and smiles at Steve, even though it feels like he’s empty inside.  Nothing else left to give. “I just thought you should know. I thought you should know it’s not something you should worry about.  I’m not going to cling to you because you are the only thing I have left in the world that I know, because I realize I don’t really know you anymore, and it’s not really good for either of us that I stay here.”

There is something dawning in Steve’s face.  A light in his eyes that Tony used to know as his expression twists.  “I worked it out with the attorney of the Avengers. There was a clause and a fund we put together years ago, in case of sudden return to existence.  I’m using some of it to get a place, get myself set up.”

“Tony,” Steve says low and quickly, like he is tripping over himself to get the words out.  “Tony you can stay here as long as you want. I told you that when you woke up. You don’t have to just leave.”

Tony slips his hands into his pockets and one shoulder shrugs.  “I don’t think we’re good around each other,” he replies. He’s honest because what else is there now?  He has bandages on his wrists that prove he shouldn’t be anything but. “We weren’t before, and now, I don’t know.  I can’t look at you without feeling like I’m a failure.”

“Tony,” Steve reaches out and Tony flinches away when one hand tries to grip with his wrist.  He looks concrite and pulls back, shrinking into himself. “I never meant for you to feel that way.  Let me fix this.”

“I need to fix myself first,” Tony says.  “Anything that comes after that.” He pauses and looks at Steve who has his hands held together in front of him, falling into parade rest - ever the soldier.  Tony feels a surge of affection in himself that rattles around in his insides before fading. He sharply misses emotion.

It feels like something.  He’s not sure.

“Anything else,” he continues quieter, like it’s just something he only wants the two of them to hear.  No one else. Not even the walls. “It’ll happen if it’s supposed to.”

Steve’s lips are pressed together tightly.  “Okay,” he nods. He is tense and serious. “When are you heading out?”

“Now,” Tony pulls his hands out of his pockets and holds them in front of him, running the flat palms against each other.  “I didn’t mean to say something and run…” he trails off. He meets Steve’s eyes and lets his lips kick up, sincere. “But I’ve never been great at being honest and sentiment.”

“No,” Steve chuckles a little wetly.  “You never really have been Tony.”

He holds his arms open, carefully choreographing his movement for a hug.  Tony steps into it, and he can feel Steve’s pull on his sweater, the tight grip.  He still smells like paint, like he did in the old days. Tony takes in a deep breath, nose buried in Steve’s neck and quiets his thoughts for a moment.  Doesn’t add weight to the moment, just exists in it.

They stay there for a long moment before Tony pulls back.  He feels Steve’s lips, rough and chapped, against his hairline for second before dismissing the thought.

“You going to be okay?” Steve asks.

“Maybe,” Tony hums, noncommittedly.  “But then that’s the same odds as before.”

Steve laughs, soft and light.  “Never change Tony.”

“Oh I always evolve,” Tony replies with a grin.  “You just have to keep adapting too.”

He turns and walks out of the apartment, down the hallway and takes the elevator.  He’s very careful not to look back, not to go back. Once he gets to the landing pad, he looks up to Steve’s floor and sees him staring down at Tony.  His hand is pressed to the glass.

Tony raises his hand in the Vulcan salute, and Steve’s hand makes the gesture as well.  He’s smiling when Tony looks away as he gets in the pod.

He’s careful not to look back until he’s halfway across the city, and even then, he had to ball his hands into a fist as he does it.


	2. epilogue

Tony stands in the middle of an art gallery.  It’s one of the few things left that is still heavily done with paper and pen and by hand.  It makes him feel at home in the future.

 _The present_ , he thinks firmly.  He’s been here for three years, and he can’t still call it the future.  It makes the therapists take too many notes.

He sips on a flute filled with fake champagne as he looks around the room, the scrawling sketches, painstaking detailed designs that turn into fully fledged 3D models painted until they look like scaled.  It’s a room filled with the statues to the past in the style of today.

Tony smiles as he looks around the room and sees the detailed moments of Iron Man suits of old captured, the planes of the different marks.  The figures of Pepper, Happy, Peter and MJ standing side by side, caught in time before the Civil War. Hawkeye and Bobby are side by side on one side of the room.

Across the room there is a progression of sketches of younger versions of Natalia being trained by the Asset trail into a painting of Black Widow and Winter Soldier and  and on different sides, bullets hanging midair, before ending in a statue of them fighting side by side - Nat and Barnes.

He smiles at the look on her face in the final piece.  Fierce, fearless. He misses her, but it hurts less these days.  A dull ache instead of a sharp pain he used to push down every morning.

He starts moving forward into another room when he sees Steve, clad in a suit, across the room.  His bulk makes the people in the room look smaller. He’s near a glowing statue of Ms Marvel standing side by side with her Captain Marvel persona, at their back is Carol in her flight suit.  

Tony is helpless to do anything but smile at him for a moment before a floating tray nearly bumps into him.  Tony down the rest of the glass before putting it down, even though all it does is wet his suddenly dry mouth.  Steve looks over his way and catches his eye.

Steve stills for a moment, taking in Tony before picking his way over.  People part between them, like the Red Sea before Moses, and Tony has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.  Even now, he still has the sort of charisma that people don’t even know affect them.

Tony’s missed him so much it feels like his chest is going to cave in with the sudden reminder of how much the last little bit has hurt.  How much he knew he was breaking Steve’s heart, once he could see clearly.

“Hey,” Steve says, soft and careful.  

He looks like he’s aged decades in the two years since they last talked.  His hair is shorn short, trying to hide the beginnings of the gray he is sporting. Tony knows his own face doesn’t show the time.  The doctors think his aging has slowed with Extremis down to a sixteenth of the speed it should be.

“You look younger,” Steve says, quietly when Tony doesn’t say anything.

Tony runs a ran across his bare chin before shrugging.  “And you look like shit.”

Steve smiles, but it looks like it takes too much effort.  Like he is straining something. “It’s been a hard few years.”

“I know the feeling,” Tony says, ironically.  He fidgets and puts his hands in his pockets. “God it’s like I forgot how to be around you in the two years, even though I didn’t do that when I was sort of comatose and half dead for 300 years in ice.”

Steve laughs a little bit.  It’s still subdued, but it’s real. “Emotions,” he replies, shrugging.  “I think we’re both bad at them.”

For the first time Tony has hope for this.

“You think?” Tony bites back before taking a step forward, hands out of his pockets as he choregraphs his movements slowly.  

Steve steps into the hug and for a moment clings too tight to Tony, but he’s holding Steve just as tightly before he steps back.  Tony lets him fall back but keeps close into his space. They walk the empty rooms, looking at the artwork.

It eases from the early Avengers in their costumes to a model of them all sitting the manor, laughing and throwing popcorn at each other.  Clint has a bandage over his nose, like he always did, Jan’s young and face soft as she leans in on Hank - both still have their rings. “It’s great Tony,” Steve says finally.  

Tony shrugs.  “Thankfully I didn’t lose my drafting skills.  I just tweaked it enough to be able to pull this off.”

Steve stops and turns to him.  “You know this is really good. This isn’t people just humoring you.  It’s been open for months. I heard they want another exhibit from you.”

Tony’s lips twist, because it’s true but he still thinks he is getting foot traffic because he’s the undead freak.  The second exhibit will be the true showing.

He has some ideas in the back of his mind about it.  What he wants to focus on. “It’s just something to work through my grief,” he admits. “It’s not that great.”

“Tony,” Steve says, firm.  “Take the compliment for once.”

It’s quiet enough in the place, deep in the behind the scenes area of the exhibit that the sound of other people is nearly silent, that Steve’s sincerity is disconcerting.  Too honest. Too real. Tony ducks his head for a moment, takes in a deep breath, before meeting Steve’s eyes.

“Thanks Steve.  It means a lot coming from you,” he replies.  

There is a lot more they need to say, discussion they need to have.  Apologies Tony needs to impart. He’s better now, got his footing. Not looking to hurt others, not looking to take anyone else down.

It’s taken two years, but he’s clawed his way back to an equilibrium, and Tony isn’t looking to lose it any time soon.  But the way Steve’s looking at him, he thinks Steve already knows everything he wants to say.

“Got a favorite piece?” he asks instead and watches as Steve’s eyes light up.  He points back to the one of Thanos, mid-snap and bodies underneath his wide legged stance.  He begins to go on about the subtle shading, and the metaphors of the bodies.

They’ve got time, Tony knows as he grins softly.  He’s going to do this right this time.

They both deserve that.

**Author's Note:**

> This story saw me through my brother being diagnosed with a heart condition that will either kill him in four years or he'll live through, dealing with the family fall out of that, and me figuring out I have a 50/50 change of having the same thing, along side about a million other disasters. 
> 
> This story tells you more about me than I meant I think. :)


End file.
